‘Pocket’ Aircraft Carrier to Mother Seaplanes
Following the trend toward “pocket-size” warships, an airplane carrier designed by a British aircraft manufacturer has a displacement of only 3,000 tons. It
would be specifically commissioned to handle seaplanes. Over-all length would be 361 feet, with a fifty-two foot beam. Its cruising radius would be 5,000 miles.

I don’t know of any chemically propelled submarines that have ever been deployed, but the Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, was completed about five years after this was published. The author is correct that Ballistic Missile Submarines did become a huge part of our strategic deterrent during the cold war.

Jet Sub Fires Underwater Rockets

Submarines can win a war, top military men say! So here’s the dope on our race for undersea supremacy.

By Frank Tinsley

THE lowly pig-boat of yesterday has become the capital ship of tomorrow! An American jet submarine, firing underwater rockets, might tilt the balance between victory and defeat in the event of a third world war.

THE Navy’s PT (patrol torpedo) boats created an unexpected niche for themselves in WWII. In the Pacific, they were used almost entirely as gunboats, doing much damage to Japanese coastal supply lines. Consequently, now the Navy is thinking of them as torpedo-gunboats with torpedoes which can be replaced speedily with guns.

ONE of the “hush-hush” items of America’s defense effort is a radically new type of boat known as the “Sea Otter.” A one-third size model of the new boat is shown at the top. At right is a full-scale “Sea Otter,” showing its novel pointed prow. The propeller is just aft of the center of the ship. Powered with 16 six-cylinder automobile motors, “Sea Otters” can be turned out in two months, will be 270 feet long, carry 1,500 tons of cargo, and have a cruising range of 7,000 miles.

The fate of our navy hangs on the outcome of the most dangerous and dramatic maneuver ever known!

BY JAMES KEVIN MILLER

OUT in the lonely atoll of Bikini, 4,150 miles southwest of San Francisco, the curtain of the first act of one of history’s greatest dramas, Operation Crossroads, is about to rise. A production staff of 20,000 scientists and technologists has assembled the supporting cast and props. The dress rehearsal has been held, and the vast stage is set.

For the stellar role, an A-bomb of the power used on Nagasaki will be dropped from a B-29 on about 100 surplus and obsolete ships.